Mario Kart Tour, after a record-breaking first day, raked in 90 million unique downloads in its first week, making it by far Nintendo’s biggest mobile launch.
The mobile version of the massively popular Mario Kart series was downloaded 10.1 million times in its first day according to Apptopia, and more than 20 million times according to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence. The figures were record-breaking, and it was expected that Mario Kart Tour‘s success was only beginning.
Mario Kart Tour‘s 90 million downloads in its first week are six times greater than Nintendo’s second-best launch, which is Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp with 14.3 million downloads, according to Sensor Tower’s Store Intelligence. In third place is Super Mario Run, with just below 13 million downloads in its first seven days, followed by Fire Emblem Heroes with 8.1 million downloads and Dr. Mario World with 3.6 million downloads.
Android is the more popular platform for Mario Kart Tour, with 59.5% of downloads on Google’s mobile operating system, while the United States is where the game was the most popular, with 14.7% of all downloads.
In terms of spending, however, Mario Kart Tour is trailing in the race. The game earned $12.7 million over its first week, which is only good for third place behind Fire Emblem Heroes‘ $28.2 million and Super Mario Run‘s $16.1 million.
It should be noted, though, that Fire Emblem Heroes is a free-to-play game with microtransactions, while Super Mario Run‘s full game is behind a paywall. Mario Kart Tour, meanwhile, offers a free two-week trial for its Gold Pass, which unlocks the fastest racing tier for $5 per month. This means that the revenue is expected to start flowing in after the initial trial periods end.
It remains to be seen if Mario Kart Tour will eventually exceed the success of Pokémon Go, which is not a Nintendo mobile game but uses characters from the popular Pokémon series. Pokémon Go was only downloaded 38.5 million times in its first week, but primarily because it had a limited release and only launched in three countries. The game has earned $2.95 billion globally since it was released though, and $110 million just last August alone, so Mario Kart Tour has a long way to go in terms of earnings.
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